David Tan

David Tan: I guess how I started, from my oldest memories as young as I can go, my grandfather on my father’s side had his restaurant. He started with hot pot. There were two different cuisines going on in this corner shop in Malaysia. We call it steamboat, where you dip things in a broth and then in sauces. It’s similar to Chinese Sichuan hot pot, but milder, more broth-based. That was my grandfather’s business.

In the morning he also did something quite famous in Malaysia called bak kut teh, a very herbal, traditional pork bone broth. So it was quite busy for my grandfather.

Then, from what I’ve been told by my family, it comes to my father. When my father was young, he was probably a little bit like me. He had a rebellious stage. My grandfather hired a professional chef to tutor him, because he wanted him to learn and have some work. But my father was very rebellious, like a gangster wannabe: “I’ll do my own thing.” He was about 18 years old.

My grandfather wasn’t so much a stir-fry chef. He was more into preparing broths and managing the business, and his bak kut teh was good. So he hired a stir-fry chef, a wok chef, to teach my father. But my father refused to go to the classes. It was quite funny, from what I remember. Eventually the chef said, “You know what? I’m leaving today. If you’re not going to take me seriously, I’m leaving. You only have one day to learn.” My dad said, “Okay, fine. I’ll give you enough respect to do a one-day crash course.” He actually learned a lot that day. I think that was the starting point of his career. But he never really fixed himself in the kitchen. He worked in other places, like me. He worked in car retail, in a second-hand or pawn shop, as a taxi driver, and then selling cars again. Around 1997, during the economic crisis, I think he decided to come to Australia to make a living.

He came alone and did all sorts of things in different industries. Somehow hospitality, the chef’s side, lasted longer. Then our first restaurant in Robe was Dragon Village Chinese Restaurant. Around 2007 or 2008 my dad had his first restaurant that he managed himself. I think that was the start of the career he’s stayed in until today.

Then there’s me. In a way, maybe I’m a little bit like my father. I grew up in a restaurant environment. My first memory is probably at a dining table. My parents were always running restaurants. My mum actually met my dad in the kitchen. She was a kitchen hand working for my grandfather, doing preparation, making the mixes. That’s how they met. Both of them were in the kitchen environment, and I grew up knowing it as my playground. When your parents are working, and there’s no one to look after the kids, the kids run around. That was us.

Like my dad, I went everywhere. After finishing school I came to help for a few months at the restaurants, and then went back to university. I worked in hospitality and other places. After graduation I worked in events, at Fitness First, and at Park Hyatt, in food and beverage and events.

I jump careers every few years. Maybe, to put it in a good way, I like learning different skills in different industries. I went into tourism as well. I was jumping around, and then I went into probably one of my longest careers.

I worked for Crown as a host, taking care of the high rollers. That was one of my most interesting jobs. I learned a lot. I was trained to know as much as possible: how to book a private jet, how to book a limousine, how to make sure high rollers are taken care of. It was like being a personal assistant when they flew over, because we had a lot of international clients. You had to make them feel welcome. The hotels, the limousines, even trains or private jets had to be arranged. And you learned the entertainment side too. They might want to go to a concert when they weren’t gambling.

It was a crash course. I would say Crown was one of the best parts of my career because they trained me in everything. They even trained me to work at the hotel front desk, although that wasn’t my job. I knew how to print key cards, check people in and out, pay invoices. I could also jump into the gaming side and settle $500,000 bills.

Even before that I was at Adelaide Casino, and I also went to Star Casino, doing the same thing as a host. I loved the job, but working around the clock, with shift hours, takes a toll on your body. After six or seven years I was very tired. I decided to change everything in my life.

I quit a very well-paying job. I thought, “You know what? Some of my friends from Taiwan and Malaysia came backpacking in Australia. Let me follow that path. Let me go to the UK.” I went to the UK in 2019 and stayed for several years, coming back in 2023. Then I went back to help my family.

For the first year I was helping the family. In the second year, I wanted to start something new. Nasi Rice was going to function as a central kitchen to support the family business. We would make the dumplings and all the tedious things so the chefs could focus on cooking.nI actually enjoy those tedious things, making dumplings and handmade food, because I’d learned a little home baking. That’s my kind of thing. I’m probably more similar to my mum. My mum likes all the handmade stuff. My dad likes wok cooking, and my brother is like him.

Then we decided to open the door to the public to sell the dim sims we’d always been making. That’s how Nasi Rice was born, selling just one product at first. We opened the door in June. One of the social media bloggers in Ballarat (@ballaratblogger) said, “I’ve never heard of you before, but let’s do a video.” That was only about five months ago, and it’s been a little crazy since then. If I sat down and asked myself how I managed everything in five months, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. It happened one thing at a time.

I opened the door with one product, then decided to join the Ballarat pie competition. I don’t know why I did it, but I put my name down. I invented a new product, a fusion between Malaysian food and an Aussie shepherd’s pie. The base was Malaysian curry, with a shepherd’s pie-style potato casing on the outside. I managed to make it firm enough to hold in your hands, but not dense like a lot of gluten-free pies. There was a lot of trial and error before I got the right consistency. I’d love you to try one when I’m back.

That was in August. In September we had big productions come in, and in October, just a few weeks ago, our family decided to end a contract with the Midlands Golf Club. We’d been working with them for eight years. It was good during the pandemic, but it wasn’t a good long-term plan. We had to pay a commission, which was fair because we were using their kitchen. But after eight years, at around 25%, if you’re making $35,000 and paying $6,000 or $7,000 a week, you might as well go out on your own.

Our family decided it wasn’t a bad thing to start small, to go back to the core. So Nasi Rice, my side, and my dad’s kitchen downstairs merged about three weeks ago. The result was much better than expected. My parents were worried about cutting off such a big source of income and going to a small takeaway kitchen. But I think it’s a great thing, because managing a large club isn’t easy. It’s not just the food. There’s human resources, labour, skills. You always need someone there to cook, and the cooking has to meet a particular standard. If you’re cooking for a hotel, for example, it has to be their brand, their cuisine, their standard and consistency. It was very hard for my parents to manage all that. Coming back to the smaller kitchen, back to our family, we can start from the ground up.

Whenever I visited my mum, even when I was in college, the first thing I’d see was that she was making dumplings for my dad. She was always preparing the dim sims and doing all that prep. I’d help her, maybe with slicing at first, then I started wrapping. We’d just chit-chat while we worked. I find it very therapeutic, just working with your hands. Maybe it’s the movement, with your mind somewhere else. Sometimes I chat with my mum. If I’m alone, I play music.

David Tan, Nasi Rice

I read somewhere that, because you grew up around food, you thought everyone could cook. Tell me about that.

My first memory probably was in the dining area, because we had lots of cousins playing around. Most of our family members were part of the restaurants: our uncles, aunties, all of us. We grew up there, and almost everyone in my family can cook.

My mum was a brilliant home cook, even though she worked as a kitchen hand. My dad was trained, my uncles and aunties were part of the restaurants in one way or another, and my grandmother was very good too. I grew up with that until I was probably 20 years old.

On my mum’s side, her brother also had a restaurant. It became a communal place for the entire family. Imagine: my dad’s side had restaurants and my mum’s side had a restaurant. Whenever we visited family, there was always food in a professional setting, although it was hawker-style. Meeting at a restaurant that our family owned was very common. Even my uncles and aunties had restaurants at some point in their lives.

I believed everyone could cook. In Malaysia we have a strong culture of potluck too, bringing food to people’s homes. Whenever somebody has a party, there’s food. Even when something sad happens, when someone passes away, there’s a big gathering with food, almost like a buffet. Food has been part of every occasion in my life, happy or sad. It wasn’t just sandwiches or finger food. It was a big meal.

Then I started travelling. I can’t remember whether it was in Australia or Singapore, but I stayed with a friend’s family. God bless her, the mum was cooking the same three dishes: curry meatballs, I think a broth, and rice. It was the same thing again and again. My friend told me, “My mum isn’t a very good cook.” She cooked out of necessity. My friend knew I liked cooking, not that I’m very good at it, but after the third day I said, “Auntie, do you want me to cook? I’m staying with you for free, and I don’t mind.” She said, “Oh, please, please! The kitchen is yours!” She just didn’t like cooking, but she did it for the kids. That was a bit of a wake-up call. Maybe not everyone can cook. Not to say anything bad about anyone, but everybody has different skills. I’d always thought cooking was a necessity of life.

You were saying that you like doing those repetitive tasks, making dumplings and dim sims and so on. You’ve come full circle back to food. What is it about working with food that you enjoy?

Maybe it’s part of my upbringing. Some people call it being in your blood, being in a kitchen and working in a food environment. Everyone in my family has a different style of cooking. My sister loves Italian food, and I’ve learned a little from her. I’ve learned from my mum too.

When I was very young, maybe six or seven, I would go into the kitchen and see what my mum was doing. I’d peek in and say, “Let me see.” I liked playing around in the kitchen, maybe with the fire, because boys like to play with fire! I just liked poking around. Eventually my mum thought, “Since I can’t get rid of my son, I’ll make him do some work. Go stir the rice!” I guess that started something in me.

Later I learned baking from a very good friend’s mum, when I was staying with them for a year or two. She had been a professional baker. I always found baking intriguing because my family’s cooking is very fast: stir-frying, cooking on the stove, everything happening quickly. Baking is about steps, ingredients and measurements. You start with dry ingredients you can’t eat on their own, like flour, and it turns into something beautiful.

I absorbed things here and there. Whatever industry I worked in, whether it was hotels or education, when I was at a university for three years, I always paid attention to food. Not necessarily Michelin-style cooking. I like good, interesting home cooking. I pay attention to how people do it, and I find small businesses fascinating because they have their own character.

Whenever I visited my mum, even when I was in college, the first thing I’d see was that she was making dumplings for my dad. She was always preparing the dim sims and doing all that prep. I’d help her, maybe with slicing at first, then I started wrapping. We’d just chit-chat while we worked. I find it very therapeutic, just working with your hands. Maybe it’s the movement, with your mind somewhere else. Sometimes I chat with my mum. If I’m alone, I play music. As long as there’s some background noise, I’m happy. Sometimes I put on a movie I’ve seen before so I don’t have to watch it. I know what’s happening and can picture it in my mind while I work.

So you must be really fast at making dumplings, are you?

Slower than my mum! She’s very fast. She still helps me once in a while. I think I’m getting faster. When I started again, about three years ago, my sister-in-law timed me for fun. I think it took me a minute to make a dumpling. Now maybe I can do one in 30 or 35 seconds.

Sometimes we have a friendly game to see who can finish a tray. But for every tray I do, my mum does three. She’s like a machine. If I can video it one day, you’ll see how fast she is. We’ve thought about investing in a dumpling-making machine, but my mum is already like one!

How many do you make a day?

Now the business is growing, I’d say we make a batch a week. One batch is about 20 kilos of pork filling, around 650 dim sims. After I make the filling, my mum and I do the chopping and wrapping. Between us, we can finish about 650 in less than three hours, but she does most of the work.

What fillings are there?

For the dim sims we use pork with four vegetables: celery, carrots, cabbage and shallots. Then there’s the house seasoning, with oyster sauce, pepper, sugar and salt. That’s it.

I’m responsible for making the filling now. I take a little of what I learned from baking, so I like to measure everything in grams. My parents are very traditional cooks. They go by feel. They throw ingredients in and taste as they go.

When my dad taught me his recipe, it took me five attempts to get it right. He’d say, “Two tablespoons of this,” but his tablespoon was one of those Chinese soup spoons, and mine was a standard measuring tablespoon, measured flat. It took me five tries to transfer everything into grams.

Each time I’d show him and ask, “Is it right?” And he’d say, “No.” I’d ask him to tell me in grams, and he’d get annoyed because he likes to do everything fast. He has the experience to back it up, but I don’t. I like to play safe, more like baking, and measure everything by grams.In a way, I’ve influenced my parents a bit. Now they try to follow me using grams, and they ask me to do the measurements.

And your father, Dom, will always be the head chef?

He’s still the boss, regardless of how the business structure changes or whether management changes to my sister. He’s the one we try to listen to. Of course, we give him feedback, and sometimes it’s a struggle, but even as siblings we know he has the experience and knowledge to back it up.

Even today, he’s very good at tasting. He can identify so many ingredients with his tongue. I don’t have that skill. My sister has a similar talent. She doesn’t cook a lot, but her tastebuds are very good. She and my dad will tell me, “This is too salty. Too much of this. Change the ginger.” So we still go back to my dad.

Ideally, we all want him to take it easy. I don’t think he believes in the title “quality assurance manager”, but we’d like him to be there, not to retire, but to teach us or teach someone else the quality he wants.

So now the business is smaller, but you’re doing more?

Smaller, doing more. That’s the right way to put it. The menu is smaller, but we’re doing more production. We make sauces in bulk, as well as the 650 dim sims. My dad used to make one batch of sauce, about 10 kilograms, and it could last four weeks for stir-fries. Now we’re doing more, and we also try to supply his other restaurant, Don’s Kitchen .

We want to ease the chefs’ workload. Imagine having everything on your plate: chopping vegetables, making sauces. We try to reduce the workload, and if we do it ourselves the consistency will be better. In hospitality, it’s not always a good idea to teach someone your whole recipe, because you don’t know when they’re going to leave. Everyone has their own life, and you can’t guarantee they’ll stay forever.

After ending the contract with the club, we can be more creative with the menu. When you’re working under a big club, changing the menu means getting approval. You can’t just say, “Let’s do a special today.” They have systems and procedures, and everything has to be recorded. There isn’t much flexibility.

Now we’ve downsized, we can do more daily specials. We do Hainanese chicken rice every Wednesday, and it’s become quite popular. The dim sims, Hainanese chicken rice and char kway teow are things I’ve convinced my parents to bring back over the past few weeks. Those are foods I really like as a Malaysian and as an Asian. Anglo-Chinese food is great, of course, but people travel widely nowadays. They know what good, authentic food tastes like. I want to bring that in, not change the entire menu, but at least have a chef’s special.

Are you getting mainly locals, or are people travelling to Ballarat for Nasi Rice?

If I look at our whole history, my parents have a lot of locals and regulars who keep coming back. They love the Mongolian [unclear dish] and sweet-and-sour pork. Some have become friends. They visit every few weeks.

When we started Nasi Rice, I talked a lot with my brothers and sister about how we could change things. I wanted to be slightly unique, but still original. We kept a lot of our regulars, and when we introduced dishes like Hainanese chicken rice and char kway teow, we got a lot of new customers.

In the past few weeks I’ve seen new faces coming back, people I first met only a few weeks earlier. Some have come back two or three times in a week. Once they’ve tried the more authentic side, they think, “You can make the food I’ve been craving. I believe in you.” If they like our char kway teow, they’re more willing to try another product.

It’s the same with the curry ayam pie I made for the competition. People are looking forward to seeing what else we can do. Just yesterday, I had a customer who wanted to pick up a rendang pie. She’d come for the curry ayam pie during the competition in August, but we’d sold out. I gave her some dim sims because I felt bad, and she came back for the pie. Then she waited months for the rendang pie.

It takes time to make, and I have to freeze it. But I’m going on holiday next week, and I’d promised her for months, so I thought, “You know what? I’m busy, but let me do it.” She’s willing to wait for me to bring it back.

Then she asked whether I could make the pie and some char kway teow for a work luncheon, even in a small amount. One food convinced her to try another. She’s come back several times, and I think that’s really good.

I’m happy with the result and with the people I’ve met, although it’s tiring. I only slept six hours yesterday. But I’m happy with the family effort. Working with family isn’t easy, but I think it’s worth it.

Where are you getting those ideas? When you think of different things, do you write them down? How do you work out how to make them happen?

Mostly through yapping, through talking! I think I talk the most in my family. Probably not everyone likes it. But I talk to my brother a lot. He’s a great listener. When we have family dinner, with my brother and sister-in-law, we talk.

I told my brother, “Should I do a rendang pie? A fusion between an Aussie pie and our rendang?” He was very encouraging: “Let’s give it a try.” I bought puff pastry from the supermarket and gave it a go. It was nice. Then everyone convinced me, “No, you should make your own puff pastry.” I said, “No, that’s too much work!” Six months or a year ago I didn’t even know how to make it. But I pushed myself to learn, and now I can laminate it to get layers. I even bought a laminating machine from Japan to roll it, so the layers are consistent. Then I liked the idea of mooncakes presented in a gift box. I thought, “Let’s turn the pie into a mini pie and make it like a gift box.” People liked the idea. They could take it home and give it to friends.

When the curry ayam pie came along, the pie competition was about creating something new. I didn’t want to do the same thing again. I thought, “What can we do? Let’s take another of Dad’s recipes, curry ayam, the chicken version, and turn it into a pie. But let’s make it even more different.” Instead of putting potato in the curry, as we normally do, I put the potato on the outside, like an Aussie shepherd’s pie. It tasted good. I develop an idea here and there, but besides talking, I like feeding people my trial products. I feed my friends and family, and they give me recommendations.

Sometimes I’ll have a lovely customer walk in, and if I’ve got a trial batch left over, I’ll say, “Do you want to try it?” They’re curious. They try it and give me feedback. With the curry ayam pie there was a lot of trialling, feeding neighbours, good friends and new people walking into the shop.

One of the best breakthroughs came from a customer who said, “It’s a great pie, but I’d like to be able to hold it.” The mashed potato was quite soggy after cooking. So we tried adding rice flour and other starches to make it denser, and frying it more. It became firm enough to hold.

It’s talking to people. They encourage you. Another skill I’ve learned throughout my life is something I always say: “A short pencil is better than a long memory.” Whenever you have an idea, write it down. Even if you wake up with it, type it into your phone. I have a list in my phone. It’s random and messy, but I try my best to keep those ideas. Sometimes an idea I use today came to me four years ago. When you’re playing with food, something jumps out and you think, “Oh yes, I wrote about this.” Then you connect everything together.

That’s good advice. And what are you looking forward to in 2027?

I actually don’t know. It’s not far away now. If you’d asked me a year ago what I would be doing with Nasi Rice, it’s completely different from what I imagined. When I tried my first food stall last November, I never imagined I’d have a shopfront today, or that I’d enter a pie competition.

Now that we’ve merged with my dad’s business, I’d probably like to push Nasi Rice towards a hybrid café, with a little more pastry-making, baking and fusion-style food. I’ll still help my family with the hot food, the stir-fries, which I like. But they’re great at what they do, and I’d like to support them while doing something I enjoy too, getting back to pastry-making.

My mum said the other day, “We haven’t baked for a while,” and she was pointing at me! We’ve been so busy building up the business. If we move a little more towards mornings and café service, then in the quieter times I could do some baking. So maybe a hybrid café.

Exciting. Watch this space.

Nasi Rice, 916 Howitt Street, Wendouree, Ballarat